“I’m not going to say what I was going to say because you’re a lady.” I winked at her and she punched me in the arm.

“You’re a pervert.”

“And you love that about me.”

“Maybe, maybe not,” she said, her eyes softening as she looked at me. I laughed, my eyes taking in every detail of her face. The curve of her lips, so luscious and pink, the twinkle in her eye as she gazed at me in something akin to delight. Her skin was glowing and I could see just how happy she was. In fact, my whole body could feel it, because I felt the same way. We were just so at ease. Our spirits flowed together. It felt natural being with Mila. She was the only person I ever truly felt comfortable with. She made me feel like I could just be me. All of me, in every way. There was no facade. There was no trying. I could tell my goofy jokes. I could be rude, fun, silly, sad, quiet, whatever and she always got me. I’d never really thought about that before. I’d never really thought about just how easy it was with her.

“What do you want to do later?”

“I don’t know.” She shrugged. “Maybe talk about the business stuff?” She made a face. “Exactly what I’m doing as your four-week fiancée?” she asked me and looked into my eyes so earnestly that I felt my heart stop for a few seconds. It always came back to this. While sometimes I could forget exactly what we were doing, I knew I could never really forget. Not when the truth of the matter was so very dark and deep. My heart sank and I could feel my energy sapping as I realized that this comfortable feeling with Mila might soon be something of the past.

“Eh, do we want to talk about business?” I asked her lightly, my heart sinking.

“I guess not.” She shrugged. “What about Cody and Barbie? Do you know what’s going on with them?”

“What do you mean what’s going on?” I opened the fridge door to take out the bread, butter and assortment of cheeses.

“Are they still seeing each other?” she asked curiously.

“I didn’t know they were seeing each other,” I said carefully, studying the cheese packets closely.

“Well, they had sex.” Mila sounded disgusted. “So I’m curious if that’s still going on? I wanted to have Cody and Sally over for dinner, but not if he’s going to bring that ho.”

“Are you trying to match-make them?” I looked at Mila then. “Are you sure that’s a good idea? I mean, Cody seems to be all over the place right now.”

“Sally is too good for Cody.” Mila made a face. “He’s my brother and I love him, but when he had sex with Barbie, I could have killed him. She’s such a skanky bitch.”

“Mila.” I shook my head at her.

“What?” She glared at me. “It’s true. And I blame you for bringing her that weekend.”

“It’s not my fault that Cody slept with her.” I really didn’t want to talk about this. The more we talked about Barbie, the worse I felt. Mila didn’t know how I really knew Barbie and, at this point, even if I wanted to tell her I couldn’t. There had been too many lies. Too much deceit. I knew that Mila wouldn’t understand, especially seeing as I couldn’t tell her everything that was going on. But I also knew that she would find out eventually. Eventually the truth would come out and everything around me would come crashing down.

My stomach churned as I thought about how Mila would react when she learned the truth. I could already see the pain and hurt in her eyes, maybe even anger and hatred. She’d never forgive me. That I knew for sure. And I didn’t know if I’d ever forgive myself either. But I’d come so far. Too far. I was in it now. I was a man of my word. I had to follow through.

I wondered then, if I could go back in time, if I would still have agreed to the plan. At the time, it had seemed quite harmless. I hadn’t thought that it was anything more than a business transaction, but then I hadn’t been thinking with anything other than my head. Things had changed now. There was a part of me that couldn’t stop thinking about how much I was hurting Mila and she didn’t even know. I was ashamed of myself. I was a predator, taking what I wanted without any regard to my prey. I was the top of the food chain. I was king. And I didn’t like who I was with all that power. I was a despot. A despicable person.

Yet, I was still able to forget. I was still able to be with Mila and pretend. Because when I was with Mila, I did forget. All I thought about was how easy and good it felt to be with her. She was so genuine, so sweet, so loving. I froze as I thought about that. She was loving. Too loving. I knew she was falling deeper and deeper for me. She possibly still had a crush on me. Still felt she was in love with me. I liked that, but I didn’t. I didn’t want her to fall in love with me. I didn’t want her to think that I was something that I wasn’t. Falling in love with me would only break her heart a second time. I couldn’t do that to her. I wanted to be selfish. I wanted to feel her love. Oh, how her love filled me up. When I was lying in bed late at night, sometimes I would just picture her smile and the look in her eyes as she leaned over to hug me and kiss me and it would make me warm. It would make me feel things that I’d never imagined feeling before. Sometimes those feelings made me feel uncomfortable. If they happened in the day, I banished them. But late at night, when the lights were out and it was quiet, I could pretend it was all a dream world. A dream-world fantasy and I’d let myself enjoy it. I’d let myself just soak it all in. And in those moments, I felt alive, truly alive. It was only in the morning that I’d be angry at myself.

“TJ, are you paying attention to me?” Mila poked me in the arm.

“Sorry, what?” I gave her an awkward look, not having heard a word she’d said. “I was thinking about something.”

“Not about Barbie, I hope,” she said jealously and I tried not to grin.

“Maybe I’ll think about Barbie while you think of your ex-boyfriends.”

“You’re an asshole.” She glared at me.

“Am I?” I asked her and leaned over and kissed her on the lips. “Let’s not talk about Barbie anymore. She’s tiresome.”

“So does that mean she’s banished from our lives forever?” Mila asked eagerly, her eyes wide and a huge smile on her face.

“Yeah,” I said softly, not wanting to lie, but not knowing what to say.

“So Cody is no longer seeing her?”

“Cody is no longer seeing her.” I nodded. That was true. Cody had no interest in her other than from that night. Though we hadn’t really spoken about it. We hadn’t spoken about much since my fake engagement to Mila. Not that he knew it was fake. He was pissed at me for having kept our “relationship” a secret for so long. I didn’t know what to tell him. I couldn’t tell him the truth either. And that added to my hurt. We’d been best friends for so long and I felt that I was ruining everything with my actions.

“At least Cody grew some brains. It’s a pity it happened before he became a douchebag.”

“I think he did Sally a favor,” I said, sticking up for him. “At least she knows now that he likes to get around.”

“I don’t think that makes her feel better.” Mila rolled her eyes. “Men change when they’re in love.”

“So you think Cody would have stopped sleeping around if he was in love with Sally?”

“Yes.” She nodded. “That’s what love is all about.”

“Okay.” I tried to hide a grin.

“What? It’s true. When people are in true love, they don’t mess around.”

“Uhm, okay. True love, huh?” I nodded.

“Whatever.” She looked pissed. “I mean, it’s not like you’re going to mess around on me, right?” Her eyes searched mine.

“Well, we’re not in true love, so technically I can, right?” I responded without thinking and I saw her face drop. I immediately regretted my choice of words, but then realized that perhaps they were the best words I could have uttered. I mean, I had to disabuse Mila of the idea that this was ever going to be some picture-perfect love story. That wasn’t how our story was going to go down.